


The Legacy of King Arthur

by sara_bocchan (LittleSara)



Series: Distant Echoes [3]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Hopeful Ending, Light Angst, M/M, Post-Canon, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:55:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24356182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleSara/pseuds/sara_bocchan
Summary: Merlin returns to the Lake of Avalon every year to tell Arthur about everything that's been going on. This is one of these days.Can be read as a prequel to "Distant Echoes".
Relationships: Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Series: Distant Echoes [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/808179
Comments: 18
Kudos: 115





	The Legacy of King Arthur

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you, Lao, for another amazing collaboration! Your input to the story was super, super helpful and the art you created to go along to the story is absolutely beautiful! <3  
> Thank you to my betas, Xan and Josky! Editing this story was very hard and I almost gave up. But I am very glad I didn't because I really like this story! Even now, more than 2 years after writing it. <3  
> Thank you to the mods of the Fanthology project! I wouldn't have written this fic without you! <3

By the time Merlin reached the lakeside, the sun had barely risen. Under the early morning mist the lake was still mostly hidden, painted in deep shades of orange and red by the sunlight. The air was still cool, and Merlin was shivering slightly. 

Merlin scanned the lake and its surroundings. There was nobody in sight. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment. He reminded himself that this wasn’t unexpected, that it was okay. Arthur would rise again — he would! — but Merlin had no way to know when that would be. All that mattered, though, was that Arthur would be back one day. Merlin just had to keep hoping and waiting, no matter how exhausting it could be at times.

Opening his eyes again, he forced a smile on his face and said: ‘Good morning, Arthur. I’m back again, as promised.’ 

The grass under his feet was wet with dew, but Merlin sat down anyway. It was going to be a hot day — cloudless as it was already — and his jeans would be dry again in no time.

He sat there watching the small waves rolling over the shore. He tried to come here every year on this exact day. At some point it started to feel like coming home. Merlin could almost  _ feel _ Arthur’s presence this close to the Lake of Avalon. It was a blessing and a curse, equally.

Sometimes it was hard to be here and not spend the whole day wallowing, especially the first few hundred years — but Merlin always tried. Arthur had wanted him to always be himself. Merlin did his best to live up to this, no matter the cost.

Admittedly, it had taken him a while to figure out what ‘being himself’ really meant. What defined him, besides his magic? What was his true self? How was he supposed to live his life to make Arthur proud?

When the mist started to fade and the sun was warming his skin, Merlin moved again. He set down his trusty old backpack and opened it. He pulled out a cheap paperback, but then decided against it and grabbed one of the lunchboxes instead. He had been up since two in the morning to arrive at dawn — he was starving!

As he nibbled on a carrot, Merlin started to speak again. ‘So, another year, huh? And I almost didn’t make it this time.’ He took another bite and gesticulated with the half-eaten carrot at the lake. ‘Just came back from Egypt last night and folks from Latvia called for my help before that, too. I won’t even make it home because my next flight leaves tomorrow.’

When he closed his eyes, he could almost make himself believe Arthur was there with him. Rolling his eyes at Merlin, or laughing — gods, Arthur’s laugh. If Merlin had to choose what he missed most, it would be this, without a second thought.

He wasn’t going to dwell on such a sentiment; not right now, at the very least. Instead, he searched through his backpack again, with the open lunchbox in precarious balance on his lap.

‘Where did—  _ Aha _ !’ Merlin pulled the paperback out and presented it to the lake. ‘I brought another one. This one’s called  _ The Mysterious King Arthur — Who He Really Was! _ It’s as glorious as it sounds.’ At the memory of some of the complete bullshit the authors of this book had come up with, Merlin couldn’t help laughing out loud. He had bookmarked his favourite parts; there were at least a dozen sticky notes in different colours poking out at the top and side of the book.

He took one of the sandwiches out of the lunchbox and proceeded to take a big bite from it before opening the book to a random bookmark and quickly re-reading the highlighted paragraph.

‘Oh, this is a good one! Listen:  _ The quest for the grail was undertaken by all 150 knights of the Round Table —  _ we didn’t even have that table at the time! —  _ but only three of them succeeded: Sir Galahad, Sir Percival and Sir Bors. Upon presenting the grail to their King, they were rewarded extensively. _

‘That’s so far from what actually happened!’ Merlin added, waving his sandwich about to emphasis his incredulity. ‘Can you believe this? Your father sent us — well, only you, actually — on a secret mission to find the Holy Grail, and now people write about it as if half of Camelot had been searching for it.’

Still laughing at these so-called experts, Merlin flipped to the next bookmark, skimming the text.

‘Oh and this one is my personal favourite:  _ Furthermore we established that it was Merlin, the king’s magician, who crafted the Round Table. The shape was supposed to represent the likeness of the world — not, as often misinterpreted, equality. _ ’

He shook his head, snickering. ‘I really think that’s my new favourite: Merlin the magical carpenter.’

Merlin kept leafing through the book. He was considering reading another part to Arthur, when suddenly a gust of wind whirled over him. It was gone as quickly as it had come, leaving only the soft lakeside breeze, but it was enough to startle Merlin out of his musing. He let his gaze roam over the lake, unsure of what exactly he was looking for. He saw another gust roll over the water, creating beautiful waves on its surface.

When the wind reached him again, it was almost as if he could hear Arthur laughing with him. The smile returned to his face and, nodding at the lake once, he refocused on the book in his lap.

* * *

Merlin arose and walked the few paces down to the shore. There was a wooden pole about half his height with a piece of red fabric tied around the top — one of Merlin’s old neckerchiefs. He had left it here hundreds of years ago, when he first started his annual visits.

That way, something of Merlin’s always stayed here, with Arthur. He hoped that in case Arthur returned at a time when Merlin wasn’t here, he would recognise the neckerchief. He would know that Merlin would be back sooner or later. He would know that Merlin had been waiting for Arthur. 

He would know that... that Merlin missed him.

Merlin shook his head and reached for the neckerchief, carefully untying it. It was ragged and stained, but Merlin didn’t cherish it any less, and with a few whispered words it was as good as new.

He waited another long moment, feeling the familiar fabric in his hands and dwelling on memories, before he tied it, once more, in its rightful place, waiting for Arthur to return.

* * *

Merlin put the book back into his backpack and took out another lunchbox and a water bottle. It was past noon by now and it was getting far too hot, but the nearest shadows were too far away from the lakeside for Merlin’s taste. He had put on a hat and sunblock — helped along with a bit of magic, admittedly — making it more bearable to sit in the bright sun.

In any case, the view of the lake with the sunlight glistening on the surface, the soothing sound of the small waves rolling over the nearby shore, and the smell of grass and wildflowers all around him made it more than worthwhile to stay where he was. Well, besides the obvious reason; to be closer to the lake — closer to Arthur.

‘So, you’re probably wondering what I was doing in Egypt anyway. You know I don’t like it there. And,  _ yes, _ I got sunburned, like, everywhere,  _ again _ — but it was worth it!’ Merlin pulled his legs up and wrapped his arms around his knees loosely as he continued telling Arthur about his most recent adventure.

‘They called me because they thought someone had cursed them; it hadn’t been raining in ages, even for their standards. But I couldn’t find anything that explained a sudden drought. No curse, no magical creature, nada. I almost wanted to give up and go home — but then I noticed something else. A lot of the farmers in this village had a strange kind of... aura. A magic-induced one.

‘Apparently, they also hadn’t been acting like themselves because of whatever had been done to them. It took me a couple of days, but I found a way to cure them. Just a day later it was suddenly raining buckets!’

Merlin laughed. He had never been this happy about a thunderstorm. It had delayed his trip back home by two days because the roads were impassable, though. In the end he had to resort to magic to make it to the airport in time, but it had been worth it. The Egyptian people had been so happy and grateful. Some had offered Merlin new clothes, like a scarf or a cloak, others provided him with their finest cooking.

‘On the downside, though’ Merlin continued, his smile fading, ‘I still don’t know what caused... whatever this was. It wasn’t a curse exactly, but also not a possession or magical illness. I’ll continue to look into it and hopefully find the cause and a permanent solution, but—’

Merlin stopped, not knowing what else to say. He knew he had helped those farmers quite a lot and that they would be fine, but it wasn’t that easy. They would only be fine for now and sooner or later it could happen again if he didn't find the cause. Not to mention, nobody besides Merlin still had magic strong enough to heal those people.

Things like this happened all around the world. It wasn’t always about droughts, either. There were blizzards, volcanic eruptions — every kind of natural catastrophe imaginable.

If he couldn’t stop this, it might spread, and then he likely wouldn’t be able to help everyone.

Merlin shook his head, clearing his mind of these depressing thoughts and tried to focus on the here and now. There was still a lot to tell Arthur, after all.

‘Anyway, before Egypt I was in Peru; it was my first trip there and,  _ gods, _ have I been missing out on the most delicious food! You’d have loved it, too, trust me! It’s called...’

* * *

At some point during the afternoon, Merlin had pulled out another book from his backpack. This one had been much more expensive, with beautiful dragon engravings on the front and down the spine. Merlin turned the book over a few times, not daring to open it yet, tracing the embossing with his fingers. He hadn’t read the book before; wasn’t sure if he wanted to read it at all.

The title read,  _ Merlin: The Legacy of King Arthur _ , and according to what he could gather from the blurb, this book was pretty accurate. The authors had written about the Once and Future King and how he would rise again in Albion’s hour of greatest need. They had written about Merlin and how he was somewhere out there, still waiting for his king to rise again. And they had written about what would happen once Arthur returned.

Merlin was sure that he wasn’t ready for that last part. Sure, it was just some story, something that someone had invented. But Merlin knew, even without opening the book once, that it would be the perfect future he had always hoped for.

Regardless, he knew Arthur would want to hear it, and maybe Merlin needed to hear it, too. Taking a deep breath he announced the title to Arthur, opened the book and started to read.

* * *

Merlin leaned back, settling on his forearms. He took in a deep breath, relishing the fresh, clean air, the warming sunlight on his skin, and the peaceful atmosphere. There was a road nearby — Merlin had parked his car at the roadside — but there were rarely any cars passing by and the nearest village was at least a mile away. It was easy to almost forget about the present and how much time had passed. How much had changed. Like the fact that people could travel all around the world within hours, that nobody believed in magic anymore, or that Arthur’s and Merlin’s lives had become a myth instead of history.

For a short time, Merlin let himself dwell on memories of times long past.

The time they were out on a hunt and it was entirely too hot to move, much like the weather was now. They had come across a waist-deep pond and Gwaine hadn’t hesitated one moment before pulling off his clothes and running into the cool water. Elyan and Leon had started a splash fight, only to lose spectacularly against the combined forces of Arthur, Gwaine and Merlin. They had lost track of time completely and in the end spent hours there.

The time when he was out collecting herbs with Gwen and Morgana — well, Morgana wasn’t doing any work, but that didn’t matter. They had been friends and were happy to simply spend time together. They had idled in the forest for hours, until one of the knights found them and insisted on Morgana’s return to the castle.

Or the time when Arthur had dragged him along on yet another mission to defeat a magical beast. Merlin couldn’t remember what it was they had been hunting, but he would never forget the journey itself. Arthur had still been a prince and under a lot of pressure. His mood was sour, like so often back then, but the further they got away from Camelot, the more he relaxed, and even chatted back at Merlin. It was the first time Arthur had treated him more like a friend than a servant.

It had been a great era. Maybe not all of it, but that didn’t matter to Merlin, not anymore.

What did matter however, was that the sun was already sinking, painting the sky orange and red again. There was only about an hour until sunset, but he still had so much to tell Arthur!

‘Alright, what else should I tell you?’ Merlin sat up straighter again, still gazing at the glistening surface of the lake. ‘Right! After I was back from Bergen, I got reports of a few kappa incidents near Nagoya, so...’

* * *

The sun had set and the temperature dropped as fast as the light faded. Merlin had already donned his jumper, and he had a warm jacket in his backpack. He planned to stay until the early morning and leave at first sunlight.

Merlin had been watching the sunset in silence, as he always did. It was a long while before he spoke again, but there was one more important thing he had to address.

‘There really is a lot going on right now, Arthur, and I... I don’t know if I  _ can  _ help. This is beyond anything I’ve ever seen in all these years. Maybe—’ Merlin broke off, not daring to finish. There had been too many times when he had been so sure that  _ this  _ was it. That this was the moment. That this was the reason for Arthur to rise again — but nothing had ever happened. He wasn’t going to let himself hope, again, that the current world-wide crisis would be “Albion’s hour of greatest need” — at least, not too much.

Taking a deep breath, he continued, ‘I will try to help however I can, of course, but... I’ll be travelling a lot, even more than I have in the past few years. I don’t know when I’ll be able to visit you again.’

Even just the idea of not coming here distressed Merlin. As melancholic as being at the lake made him sometimes, he needed to be here. He could visit on other days if he couldn’t make the anniversary, but it wouldn’t be the same.

Helping and saving these people was more important though. It’s what Arthur would do — what he would want Merlin to do. And Merlin wasn’t going to disappoint him. When Arthur returned — and it was a  _ when _ , not an  _ if _ ; Merlin was sure about that — then Merlin wanted Arthur to be proud of him. 

A cold shiver ran down his back and Merlin pulled his legs closer to his chest for warmth and comfort both. After a moment he dropped his forehead onto his knees, hiding his face. It was going to be a long, lonely night of musing, hoping, and missing his friends.

Little did Merlin know that Arthur was there, listening to his friend, and waiting for the day he could finally return to the living world and fulfill their destiny, together.

Art by [lao-pendragon](https://lao-pendragon.tumblr.com/). Check out the [original art post](https://lao-pendragon.tumblr.com/post/619646603774541824/the-legacy-of-king-arthur-by-sarabocchan-on-ao3) on tumblr!

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! <3 I hope you likes it! If you did, please consider reading "Distant Echoes", the main piece to this short story. :)
> 
> This work was created for the Merlin Fanthology project.  
> You can check it out here: https://resurrection-anthology.tumblr.com/
> 
> I took some inspiration for the books Merlin is reading from this site: https://www.historyextra.com/period/medieval/king-arthur-facts-real-round-table-holy-grail-death-buried-lancelot-guinevere/


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